The Outcast Mage

I picked this one up because I saw it in a B&N, really liked the cover, and thought it might be up my alley. It was. It's great to see publishers offering traditional epic fantasy again. I think there's a proven market for it.

The essence of this book is fine. I liked the ur-story of this book and finished in a fairly decent amount of time - as usual, I pecked through the first half for about a week and then binged the last half. Plot, characters, writing were all serviceable, engaging, and decent quality. The two romances were a bit haphazard but for the most part not cringey.

My issues with this one are in the dressings. I often find myself defending Sanderson's Elantris, because it came out in 2005, and relative to most fantasy published before 2005, it was doing something new with the short chapters, end-heavy structure, and weird cosmology and very modern-feeling approach to fantasy and magic. This book feels A LOT like Elantris, with the additional caveat that it came out twenty years later, is substantially less revolutionary, and doesn't have the explosive ending. It's entirely possible that this novel could have been a midlist offering in the late 2000s, or a high-placing SPFBO finalist these days. It's good, but it's not trying to do anything special, and that's fine. But I think modern epic fantasy these days has a mandate to try to do something with plot, and in terms of plot (and other aspects) this book falls short a bit, like many midlist books traditionally did.

Also, I personally have a slight distaste for Middle Eastern-inspired settings that include the food, culture, etc. and leave out the “bad parts” of the culture. I get why, but it feels half-baked.

Anyway, I like the dragons and I'll probably keep reading the series, but it's not going to the top of my favorites list.

Thank you to Orbit and NetGalley for the opportunity to review an ARC of The Outcast Mage.

I was so excited to read this book, it had all the makings for me to enjoy it. This is a debut high-fantasy novel from Annabel Campbell. As a debut, I am a bit more lenient on my ratings because the author is still working on their craft. I can honestly see Annabel Campbell becoming an amazing fantasy author. She has a great starting point but there are areas for improvement.

My biggest issue with this book was the pacing. It felt like nothing happened for half of the book. It was very slow to read and when I thought the pace was picking up it only slowed down more. As well as the world building being a lot all at once. There were times when you can see the author trying to weave in the world building into a scene naturally, but it did not read like it. There was many times where the world building was just dumped upon you.

I did really enjoy being thrown straight into an intense scene and figuring out what is happening in the world. My favorite parts of the story were the interlude portions. The mystery kept me reading long after I should have stopped. This is honestly a great debut that has the bones to become a great series. I am very happy to have read this and cannot wait to continue to see where the series progresses.

I strongly recommend checking this one out, but maybe keep your expectations on the lower side and know that it is a slower paced read.

Final rating: 3 stars ✨

Naila attends a magic school for mages without magic. That is, she has the aptitude for it, but for whatever reason, she can't perform any of the same magical benchmarks as her fellow classmates. She's been at this magical school for some time now and has already resigned herself to washing out and all of the baggage that entails, when one of the most powerful wizards in the city takes her under his wing. He's determined to figure out what to do about her problem, and why her magic is different than everyone else's.

We also have Entonin, a priest from a neighboring kingdom with a poor view of mages, arrives in the city with his bodyguard Karameth. Entonin is here ostensibly for negotiations and to try and smooth over feelings on both sides, but is actually there as a spy for a secret organization.

Alongside all of this is Oriven, leader of the city, casually standing up a magic army, seizing control of the food supply, and pitting mage against non-mage citizens. We don't see too much of him directly in this book, but his magical fingers are busily sowing unrest with an eye toward seeing non-mages removed from the city.

I feel like some of the reviews here are too harsh. I will say, the onboarding in this book is difficult to get through. A lot of terms, places, and concepts are thrown at you from the very beginning, and I found myself consulting the glossary in the back fairly often until things started to stick. There's a lot of information dumps early on, paving the way for the rest of the book. I feel like things start smoothing out after the first quarter or so of the book. I also feel like the bad guy of this particular book, Oriven, didn't get nearly enough direct viewpoints. He shows up in two chapters for maybe two pages apiece, and his existence in the rest of the book is other members of the government talking about what new laws he's enacted or what new controversial thing he's done. He's more of a force in this book than he is an actual antagonist.

But I thought the good parts of the book were enough to really make me enjoy this by the end. I thought the writing was descriptive and really pulled me into the city alongside Naila. I thought the political story being told was intriguing, and the last quarter of the book or so really had me on edge. I thought Naila was a really great female lead, and she had one particularly stand-out scene near the end that I loved. The side characters were also all interesting in their own right, which was also nice. I could go for an Entonin/Karameth novella/series, honestly.

All that to say, if you can get through the information flung at you in the beginning, you're rewarded with a pretty interesting political story, a strong female lead I can get behind, and a fantastic ending that leaves me waiting impatiently for the second book.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free ecopy in exchange for an honest review.